Reports
Showing 1-20 of 114 Publications
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Evolution Not Revolution
This report concludes that drones have transformed the battlefield in the war in Ukraine, but in an evolutionary rather than revolutionary fashion. While tactical innovation a...
By Stacie Pettyjohn
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“DIU 3.0”
Foreword By Richard Fontaine Rapid technological change touches virtually every aspect of life today. This includes defense and national security, and for good reason: To main...
By Douglas A. Beck
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Rolling the Iron Dice
Executive Summary The prospect of a Sino-American war looms on the horizon. No scenario for such a conflict has garnered more interest than the potential invasion of Taiwan b...
By Andrew Metrick
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Campaign of Denial
The United States faces an unprecedented challenge: simultaneously deterring large-scale conventional aggression by two nuclear-armed powers. The nation will need to deter the...
By Becca Wasser
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“Production Is Deterrence”
This report explores whether the fiscal year (FY) 2024 U.S. defense budget request for key conventional precision-guided munitions (PGMs) aligns with the 2022 National Defense...
By Stacie Pettyjohn & Hannah Dennis
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Buying Time
Discussions about defense strategy that focus on combat units and fail to account for logistics are irrelevant when it comes to understanding how well the United States can de...
By Chris Dougherty
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Avoiding the Brink
The United States is entering an unprecedented multipolar nuclear era that is far more complex and challenging than that of the Cold War. This report examines potential trigge...
By Stacie Pettyjohn & Hannah Dennis
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No I in Team
The United States faces a strategic landscape unlike anything it has encountered in its recent history. It faces a rising great power in China, a diminished but still dangerou...
By Stacie Pettyjohn & Becca Wasser
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Precision and Posture: Defense Spending Trends and the FY23 Budget Request
This report examines the fiscal year (FY) 2023 defense budget request and assesses whether it sufficiently resources what was known of the Biden administration’s national defe...
By Stacie Pettyjohn & Hannah Dennis
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Dangerous Straits: Wargaming a Future Conflict over Taiwan
Until recently, U.S. policymakers and subject matter experts have viewed the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC’s) forcible unification with Taiwan as a distant threat. But the...
By Stacie Pettyjohn, Becca Wasser & Chris Dougherty
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Long Shadows: Deterrence in a Multipolar Nuclear Age
This report examines the nuclear policies and postures of the United States and its three primary nuclear adversaries: China, Russia, and North Korea. It concludes that the wo...
By Stacie Pettyjohn & Jennie Matuschak
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Risk and Responsibility
Washington is reimagining its global role, leading the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to make difficult choices about priorities, resources, and risk to better address the l...
By Becca Wasser & Jennie Matuschak
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When the Chips Are Down
The United States is in a strategic competition with a well-resourced and capable opponent. China seeks a global role that is broadly at odds with the strategic interests and ...
By Becca Wasser, Martijn Rasser & Hannah Kelley
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The Poison Frog Strategy
How could Taiwan and the United States respond if China seized one of Taiwan’s outlying islands, such as Pratas/Dongsha (hereafter Dongsha) in the South China Sea? Whereas the...
By Chris Dougherty, Jennie Matuschak & Ripley Hunter
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Improving Joint Operational Concept Development within the U.S. Department of Defense
For the first time in nearly four decades, the DoD is developing joint warfighting concepts designed to counter advanced military rivals—specifically China and Russia. The las...
By Paul Benfield & Greg Grant
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Risky Business: Future Strategy and Force Options for the Defense Department
To consider the next defense strategy and the tradeoffs associated with different options, we developed three possible strategies—high-end deterrence, day-to-day competition, ...
By Stacie Pettyjohn, Becca Wasser & Jennie Matuschak
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More than Half the Battle
The DoD needs to embrace, rather than fight against, the changes in the character of warfare and learn to thrive within its chaos in ways that China and Russia may be unable t...
By Chris Dougherty
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Making Sense of Cents
A newly elected government has a clear opportunity to revise the national strategy, including its defense priorities, and to realign resources to support its new approach. Ann...
By Stacie Pettyjohn & Becca Wasser
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Investing in Great-Power Competition
Executive Summary This report asks whether the 2021 U.S. defense budget request is aligned with the 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) in selecting priority capability inves...
By Susanna V. Blume & Molly Parrish
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Protracted Great-Power War
Executive Summary This study provides preliminary observations and insights on the character and conduct of protracted great-power war.1 It finds the U.S. Department of Defens...
By Dr. Andrew Krepinevich, Jr.